Shania Twain's inspirational new single, 'Today Is Your Day,' hits iTunes

By Nick Patch, The Canadian Press

TORONTO — It's a special day for Shania Twain fans.

The 45-year-old country-pop superstar's inspirational new single, "Today Is Your Day," has hit iTunes following the U.S. finale of her reality TV show "Why Not? With Shania Twain."

The new tune from the Timmins, Ont., native — the first she's written on her own in six years — is a midtempo piano ballad that finds Twain purring an ode to resilience and redemption.

The track is only the latest step in Twain's ongoing comeback.

Twain's career stalled in recent years as she recovered from the breakup of her marriage to hit-making producer Robert (Mutt) Lange.

She hasn't released an album since 2002's "Up," but in recent months the notoriously private singer has opened up with a reality TV series and a revealing autobiography, and last week announced that she would return to the stage for a two-year residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas beginning in December 2012.

And those who have paid attention to Twain as she's gone public with the pain of her divorce — which she says caused her to lose her singing voice — won't have much trouble interpreting the lyrics to her latest track.

The radio-ready tune finds Twain summing up her recovery in Hallmark-worthy slogans, as she sings: "When somebody throws sticks and stones/ All they can break are your bones/ And life's gonna kick you around/ And then kick you again when you're down/ But today is your day/ And nothing can stand in your way."

The song had already cracked the top 15 on iTunes' singles sales chart by Monday morning, roughly 12 hours after its release.

Twain said in a recent interview that she planned to spend the summer crafting her first new album in nearly a decade, but that she wouldn't rush it. She also pledged to "experiment" with her sound, and indicated that her next record could signal a stylistic departure.

"Today Is Your Day," however, sounds like a vintage Twain ballad, though it leans more toward pure adult-contemporary pop than country (despite the textured banjo picking underscoring the melody). The simple, soothing tune is briefly buoyed by an electrified guitar solo about midway through, but otherwise doesn't feature too many surprises.

While her TV show has documented her struggle to restore her voice, Twain's pipes sound clear and warm on the new track — though some fans are already speculating that she's been aided by some digital studio magic.

Several country and pop blogs rushed to review the new tune immediately after it hit the web, while many of her fans simply seemed glad to have the singer back. As one YouTube commentator put it: "I love this song and we all need to support Shania."

The song's release coincided with the U.S. finale of Twain's show, which featured footage of her marriage to Swiss businessman Frederic Thiebaud.

The episode will air Friday in Canada on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5haP5CezzrhSZUioSqfM7zEV3MbUA?docId=7136275

Shaniafanforever wrote:

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Has anyone hear today is your day on radio yet?

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 I haven't.

Shania Twain Honored for Selling More Than 75 Million

Shania Twain at the Nightly Concerts at LP Field on Friday, June 10 in Downtown Nashville during the 2011 CMA Music Festival.

It’s been an eventful month for Shania Twain. On June 2, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (photos HERE). Last week during CMA Music Festival she signed her best-selling book, From This Moment On, for fans and announced a headline residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, beginning in December 2012. Last Thursday in Nashville, she was honored for reaching worldwide sales of more than 75 million, making her the top-selling female artist in the history of country music.

Luke Lewis, chairman of Universal Music Group Nashville, paid tribute to Shania’s talent, vision, and determination during an afternoon gathering at the Citizen club in Nashville. It was a full-circle moment for Shania, who was  surrounded by several music industry execs who helped start her career, including Nashville attorney Dick Frank and producers Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson (see photo below).

(l-r) Buddy Cannon, Shania Twain, Dick Frank and Norro Wilson.

Shania’s present and future successes were also represented by producer Nathan Chapman (who also produces Taylor Swift), who co-produced her new song, “Today Is Your Day,” and Ray Kennedy, who mastered the song.

“Today Is Your Day” premiered worldwide during the finale episode of Why Not? with Shania Twain on Sunday, June 12 on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

“The purpose of writing ‘Today Is Your Day’ in the first place was self- inspiration,” said Shania, who co-produced the song with Chapman. “I was talking to myself and saying, ‘Today is your day. You can do it!’ But the decision to even write the song and share it was a big decision for me, to find myself as a songwriter again, independently, for the very first time after all these years.

“Then the lyrics started flowing,” added Shania. “It was genuinely a melody that’s cheering me up. It became the natural theme song of the series.”

“It was exciting for me as a fan and as a producer to find out just how brilliant she really is as an artist,” said Chapman. “She sounds amazing; she sounds better than ever. She is one of those artists who can tell a story just in the tone of her voice. The song itself is so uplifting. At a time when all of her fans are rooting for her and wanting her to come back and find her voice, she is turning that back around and she is rooting for her fans by giving them a song that they can play to inspire them.”

For more information on or to buy tickets for the Ceasars Palace shows, visit shaniainvegas.com.

http://blog.gactv.com/blog/2011/06/13/shania-twain-honored-for-selling-more-than-75-million/

The Singles Bar: Shania Twain, "Today Is Your Day"
Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 06/13/2011 at 9:30 AM

Twain’s longtime producer Mutt Lange is out, obviously, so in his place Twain recruits producer Nathan Chapman, best known for his work with Taylor Swift. It doesn’t work. “Today Is Your Day” is a singalong of jangly piano and kindergarten rhymes that comes off like the hybrid of “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning” and Daniel Powter (the “good day”/”bad day” parallel can’t be a coincidence) that no one needed.

Some percussion gets tossed into the mix later on, and a guitar solo keens through the second half, but it’s too little too late. Not even Twain’s voice–warm as always, and all the more welcome for her extended absence and vocal problems–can save things.

“Today Is Your Day” should do fine on adult-contemporary radio, of course–the format’s been kind to Twain throughout the years–and it’s hard to imagine someone truly disliking the song, shot through as it is with kindness and fluff. But it’s rather anticlimactic, like her much-adoed press conference that turned out to be just a Vegas concert series. It isn’t our job to dictate the terms of Twain’s career, but it’s as if she’s re-emerging onto the national stage with a shy smile, a blink or two and the slightest inspirational words she could muster, when she’s proven she’s capable of so much more.

POPDUST SAYS: 2 out of 5

http://popdust.com/2011/06/13/shania-twain-today-is-your-day-review/

I need help, if you're available!!

At 8pm this evening on 98.7 WMZQ in Washington DC they have a contest for new songs called the "Country Cat Fight". Shania won last night!!! She will be up against another song this evening. If you can, please call 1-800-505-0098 between 8 and 8:30pm this evening so Shania can win again!

There are some major haters out there - I'm fine if they don't like the song but these people have been downright rude. Especially the women... go figure!! Jealousy is an ugly thing, and so are the women who hate her! DUUHHHHHH!!

"Today Is Your Day" is still holding at #2 on the iTunes Country chart in the U.S. and #1 in Canada as well as several other countries.
http://www.apple.com/euro/itunes/charts/top10countrysongs.html

"Today Is Your Day" is #16 on the All-Genre U.S. chart.

"Today Is Your Day" has dropped to #12 on the iTunes Country chart in the U.S. but is still #1 in Canada.
http://www.apple.com/euro/itunes/charts/top10countrysongs.html

"Today Is Your Day" has dropped to #48 on the All-Genre U.S. chart.

'Today Is Your Day' Single: Review

'Today' is not Shania Twain's comeback day

By Sean Daly, Times Pop Music Critic
Posted: Jun 21, 2011 03:54 PM

It shouldn't be tough rooting for Shania Twain these days. Embarking on a comeback after a six-year radio silence — and a nasty tabloid fracas — the Canadian born Eilleen Regina Edwards was raised in an abusive household. When she was 22, her parents were killed in a car accident, leaving her in charge of three sibs. She bootstrapped herself into the best-selling female country artist of all time with punctuation-happy hits like Man! I Feel Like a Woman! and (If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here!.

And then her husband, super-producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, ditched her for her assistant/best friend. So Shania went and hooked up with the assistant/best friend's ex. Down with dudes! Up with divas! Huzzah!

With a whole lot to say, the 45-year-old just published a best-selling tell-all, From This Moment On. She taped a reality show for Oprah's OWN network. And she hooked up with David Foster — a schmaltzmeister who's usually money in the bank — to cut new single Today Is Your Day.

But that's where rooting for Shania Twain gets a lil' tricky.

She didn't have to be brilliant to regain her throne. In fact, she didn't even have to be all that good. It's not like Don't Be Stupid (You Know I Love You) was a sterling piece of songcraft.

But wow, Today Is Your Day, her first new piece of music in a long time, is a shocking stinkeroo every which way. It truly makes for uncomfortable listening, not just because it sounds as if she's singing out of the side of her mouth a la James Cagney, but because this saccharine piece of tripe reinforces all those skeptics who forever insisted that Mutt Lange, who also helmed iconic albums for Def Leppard and AC/DC, was the sole key to his ex-wife's robust sonic success.

Uh, they might've been right.

Shania sounds totally adrift on the self-penned Hallmarkian claptrap of Today Is Your Day ("Don't expect more or less / Just go out and give it your best" — gack!), and her unsure warbling of the incessant torrent of tired cliches plays like a rough first take. The production is thin, cloying, self-help foofaraw, the kind of generic fake-smile junk you might hear at a second-rate theme-park kiddie show. Seriously, Barney the Dinosaur would dry-heave at this thing.

When Lange produced Def Leppard and AC/DC and, ultimately, his own wife, he didn't create templates for songs but personas. With Shania, he gave her a cape and red boots; shy and quiet in private, she became superwoman in public. But now, without Lange, she's stripped bare and she's asking us, six weird years later, to love the real Shania Twain. Yikes. If Today Is Your Day is a sign of things to come, you might want to hold your breath on that comeback.

Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8467. His Pop Life blog is at tampabay.com/blogs/poplife.

http://www.tampabay.com/features/music/today-is-not-shania-twains-comeback-day/1176520

I don't expect anything big from this song as far as the charts are concerned.  Its just a song that Shania wrote and cheered her up.  I think that this song along singing with Lional Richie helped her regain her singing voice.  Shania is going to be recording all summer on her new album and Shania going to performing on stage again.  This is more of a warm up single, not a comeback single.

Shania Twain, ‘Today Is Your Day’ – Lyrics Uncovered

Twain was writing along her journey, and as her confidence began to build a little with each episode she began to reconsider releasing the track. “It became a bit of a cheerleader. Just an optimistic arm around my shoulder saying ‘You can do this,’” she reveals.

The song begins, “You got what it takes you can win / Today is your day to begin / Don’t give up here, don’t you quit / The moment is now, this is it.”

“That song was me living what I was preaching to myself, literally every day,” the singer adds. Recording with Lionel Richie was something else Twain would not have let happen before the series began this spring. “I’m like, ‘There’s no way I can do that, I’m way too insecure vocally,’ to sing in front of another celebrity.” However, fans watched as Richie pulled Twain out of her shell and inspired a beautiful performance. Twain admits she was terrified throughout the whole ordeal.”It was quite challenging filming the series,” she says. “I did a lot of things that were uncomfortable and embarrassing, and I wanted to stick to it.”

“Today is your day / And nothing can stand in your way / Today is your day / Everything’s goin’ your way,” Twain sings.

Fans will have to wait until 2012 to see the singer perform live, as she’s beginning a residency in Las Vegas at that time, though Twain’s name continues to be batted around as a replacement for Jennifer Lopez on ‘American Idol’ should Lopez decide not to return next season. All of these commitments are sure to bring new stress to Twain’s life, and perhaps even sour her mood. At least now she has a quick pick-me-up to call upon: “When I wanna’ cheer myself up I just put that song on.”

http://tasteofcountry.com/shania-twain-today-is-your-day-lyrics/

Today Is Your Day! Well a good song, Yet she never promoted it at all, No offence the video could have been made some what better. I wonder will she sing her next single and promote it ? Remember Shania in todays music you have to promote your songs and make videos. The reasons well ? Youtube and Facebook are huge and to promote you have to put some effort. Lets hope you do that cause your still pretty and still got the awesome voice.